Ill-advised facial hair and a hot girlfriend
by PenguinofProse
Summary: Beginning of S5 but without Eligius. Madi, Emori and Echo help Bellamy to make the most of his second chance.


Clarke was utterly convinced that she was completely happy. Her friends had landed, all safe and sound, and full of enthusiasm and _news_ and stories of their time together on the ring and how much they'd _missed _her and how well she was looking and how wonderful it was that she'd found Madi.

Unfortunately, when Clarke came to find her fishing by the stream, Madi was less convinced that Clarke was completely happy. With a perceptiveness beyond her years she dared to suggest to Clarke that, perhaps, if she were so completely happy, she might like to, you know, _look completely happy_.

And of course, Clarke had bristled at this and made it clear that she was, in fact, _completely happy_ and that she was _pleased for them_ that they'd had such a lovely six years and seven days together. The anecdote about the time that Emori had too much moonshine last Unity Day had been particularly entertaining. Good for them, really, that they'd had such a _nice time_.

By this point they were half way back to the village, where Clarke had left everyone waiting while she went to fetch Madi. The girl was hoping that she might get a break from this ridiculous charade of _thoroughly unconvincing positivity_, but no such luck.

Her foster mother had clearly perceived that she needed to be convinced further.

"You know what else is great, Madi?"

Madi made a noise that she was pretty proud of – she thought it successful in conveying equal amounts of disinterest and tolerant indulgence of the fact that Clarke was being _ridiculous_.

"Bellamy and Echo are all kissy, which is just _lovely_. You know, I'm so _happy _for him, that he's got a hot girlfriend. I'm so _pleased _that he hasn't been lonely up there."

There was a pause, as if even Clarke had realised that her most recent preposterous statement had reeked of insincerity and self-delusion.

They were just leaving the trees when she uttered, softly and with something of a tremor in her voice, a thought that Madi had to strain to hear.

"His new facial hair seems... ill-advised, though."

_Hallelujah_, thought Madi. Finally, a moment of honesty.

She was going to have to see what she could do about all this, she thought. She'd been brought up on stories of Spacekru; the force of nature that was Raven Reyes, the self-effacing genius that was Monty Green, the outstanding individuals who were unstoppable as a team. And in _none_ of these stories had Bellamy Blake, the hero, the dependable, the _beautiful_, been hampered by a hot girlfriend or ill-advised facial hair.

She was slightly awestruck when she emerged into the village and saw them all in the flesh. After five years of Clarke's sketches and anecdotes she felt that she knew them pretty well, but she wasn't prepared for the shock of seeing them before her as living, breathing human beings. She took a deep breath, and found her voice.

"You were right on both counts." She hissed to Clarke in a loud stage whisper. "His girlfriend _is_ hot and the facial hair is certainly ill-advised."

Her work done, she set about enjoying the evening.

…..

Clarke had not known that Madi had it in her to be so thoroughly embarrassing. _Never mind_, she decided. _Nothing_ was going to dull her gloriously happy mood. Her friends were alive and here on Earth – admittedly a year and a week late, but presumably there was a good reason for that – and the life she had built with Madi here was all going to change but it was going to change for the _better_, she was sure.

She just wished Madi hadn't reminded her about the hot girlfriend and the ill-advised facial hair.

It wasn't like she had any _right_ to have opinions about his facial hair, she knew that. It was just that, well, he didn't look like _him_ any more. And she couldn't help noticing that the pair of them weren't really behaving like _them_, in their old co-leaders-who-can-take-on-the-world kind of way. There seemed to be a bit of a lack of _together_ about their dynamic.

If only she hadn't pointed that gun at him in that bunker. Would that have changed his taste in facial hair? If she hadn't sent him into Mount Weather in a moment of weakness that she misinterpreted as strength, would his taste in girlfriends have been different?

Emori was looking at her funny.

Quick, find a smile.

This was the _best day_ Clarke had ever had on the ground.

…..

Emori knew heartbreak when she saw it. In recent months she liked to think that she had become something of an expert in the area. The look on Clarke's face was transparent as anything, and that coupled with the girl's odd words earlier this afternoon had her convinced.

She remembered the time that Clarke had injected herself with nightblood rather than sacrificing her and felt another wave of sympathy. As they settled down to eat supper together around the fire, she took a deep breath and a seat next to Clarke.

Before long, Raven, looking more relaxed than anyone had seen her in years, was telling the story of the Unity Day moonshine fiasco and Emori felt her cheeks burn. She wasn't sure what she was more embarrassed by – the unsurprising revelation that she was rubbish at programming when drunk, or the fact that her friends were making it so clear to their supposed friend that they'd had some great times together, without her, while they were relatively safe and mostly fed in a metal box in the sky, and she was running around a radiation-soaked disaster of a planet missing them like crazy. It didn't seem very _tactful_, Emori thought. Funny how heartbreak makes you care more about things like _tact_.

The smile on Clarke's face was looking ever more forced. She was going to have to interrupt somehow, but what to say?

"What about you, Clarke?" No one seemed more surprised than Murphy that he was the one to move the conversation on. "What have you been up to? Tell us the story of how you found Madi? She told me it involved a bear trap."

Clarke gave the first genuine giggle Emori had heard since their landing that afternoon.

"I should have known she'd already told you that, Murphy. You've always been her favourite."

She genuinely lit up when she talked about her foster daughter, and Emori was _so proud_ of Murphy for opening the subject. Maybe he _was_ capable of kindness and emotion and _caring_. She gave a half smile in his direction and was beyond shocked when he met her eyes and gave a warm grin.

Maybe it was an evening for happiness after all.

…..

Echo found it surprisingly easy to keep a smile on her face. She'd dreamed of making it back to Earth for so long and sitting round her first real fire in six years and a week, eating real fish and smelling real trees, she knew that nothing could keep her down for long.

As the evening started to draw to a close, Bellamy excused himself and headed for the cottage that Clarke had suggested they could use. She couldn't help noticing that he'd barely so much as _looked _at Clarke all evening, presumably embarrassed by those words that Madi had said that had so _obviously_ come straight from Clarke's mouth. He'd been avoiding eye contact with his best friend and co-leader and partner-in-crime so studiously that she wondered if he feared they'd forgotten how to talk without words they way they used to. Like he couldn't bear the idea of them looking, uncomprehending, straight through each other.

Echo gave him a generous head start before following him to the cottage, catching Raven for a quick word on the way.

She had known what she would find on entering the building and, sure enough, Bellamy had nearly finished shaving.

"So, Clarke thinks the facial hair is ill-advised so you're shaving it off?"

He looked sheepish.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Good."

"What do you mean, good? Do you think it looks stupid too?"

"What I think of it is neither here nor there. You'd better hurry up, if you want to catch her before she goes to bed."

"I... think you need to explain to me what you mean."

Bellamy's voice seemed slightly stuck in his throat. Echo sighed and took a seat on the bed.

"Bellamy, I know that we said nothing would change when we got to the ground. But we had no idea she was alive when we said that so clearly some things _do _need to change." She was aware that she was welling up now. "We've been great together, Bellamy, we have. We've been good for each other. I've helped you heal and you've helped me to be kinder. But there's no way I can forget the fact that I watched you fall apart over that woman. Today, you get a second chance with someone you love." She was crying now, for the first time in as long as she could remember, because she was _not_ going to get a second chance with any of her dead. "Second chances don't come along very often in life, Bellamy. You need to go out there and tell her all those things that you wished you'd told her six years and eight days ago. All the things you never said that tormented you those first awful years on the ring."

He was crying too, and as he met her eyes she _knew_ that she could never regret this conversation.

"Thank you. I needed to hear that."

"I know."

She grinned at him, and took the now redundant razor from his hand.

"Go on."

She shoved him gently towards the door, and as he approached the fire she heard the smile in his voice as he spoke to Clarke.

"You know what I've missed most in the last 2199 days? Your generous personal styling tips."

Echo set about gathering her things, and when she slipped past the fire on her way to spend the night in Raven's cottage she couldn't resist checking that Bellamy hadn't screwed up his second chance too badly. The pair of them were sitting together, shoulders touching, laughing softly about something she was pretty sure she wouldn't have understood even if she could hear them. Looking at the pair of them, feeling the warm glow in her stomach, she was struck by the knowledge that she was, undeniably, _completely_ _happy_ for them.


End file.
